war. This IS that if Watson and I had not discovered the structure, instead of being revealed with a flourish it would have trickled out and that its impact ,,-ould have been far less. For this sort of reason Stent had argued that a scientific discovery is more akin to a work of art than is generally admitted. Style, he ar- gues, is as important as content I am not completely convinced... at least in this case. Rather than believe that Watson and Crick made the DNA structure, I would rather stress that the structure made Watson and Crick. After all, I was almost totally unknown at the time and Watson was regarded, in most circles, as too bright to be reallJ sound. But what I think is overlooked in such arguments is the intrinsic beauty of the DNA double helix. It is the molecule which has style, quite as much as the scientists. D ISCOVERY, examined closely, I once said to Crick, seemed cun- ously difficult to pin to a moment or to an insIght, or even to a single person. "I don't think that's curious," Crick said "I think that's the nature of dis- coveries, many times: that the reason they're difficult to make is that you've got to take a series of steps, three or four steps, and if you don't take them you won't get there, and if you go wrong in anyone of them you won't get there. ! t isn't a matter of one jump-that would be easy . You've got to make several successive jumps. And usually the pennies drop one after an- other until eventually it all clicks Oth- erwise, it would be too easy." But was there a moment when DNA all clicked? "Oh, yes, there was a moment when it clicked as far as I was concerned. That was the moment when Jerry Donohue told us about the tautomeric forms. I realized immediately that you could do the thing by base pairing. Though I didn't actually say that we should now build this, that, and the other, I thought it was obvIous I re- cal] it as something I saw very clearly and I thought they saw very clear- ly; but! didn't actually spell it OUt in so many words. But that was the mo- ment when, as it were, the final brick fell into place. It only needed-" He laughed. "From then on, you just had to try and see that it worked. But there was no further jUlnp to be made." What it came to, I said, was that the difference between Crick's experience of the discovery and \Vatson's ,vas the moment when the solution ,vas clear. "Yes, well, ! think Jim knew very clearly what it was, he experienced the h . " same t, Ing. But Watson came in the next morn- ing and found the right pairs, before Crick arrived. "That's right, yes, yes I came in ]ater. Oh, he did it all nght there s no doubt about it But-but the feelIng we had on that occasion was, It'S very curi- ous, that It would be too good to be true if It worked. You see And If you ask me why I didn't do It myself that evening-I don't know. JIm got there very fast; we could have taken another week." " I SOLVED it, I guess because no- body else was paying fulJ-time at- tentIon to the problem," Watson said to me. "Sure, you can say that a number of other people could have got it in the meantime. Francis wasn't really think- ing about it. Dunng that penod of a week or so when! was really worrying about how to put the bases together, I don't think Francis was ever worry- ing about that. Now, why he wasn't: eWell, Jim is thinking about it, and maybe if he doesn't get anywhere I'll think about it.' The thing was not that it was difficult for anyone to think through-it was getting yourself Into a position 'where it was your only prob- lem to think about I had nothing else to do. I was totally underemployed. And I was the one who got it." He stopped, and breathed in with a hiss and a grimace. "The only one who might have would have been Francis-gone back that night, and, ah, done it." Or Donohue, who knew everything that Crick and Watson knew? "He could have done it. But he hadn't come to Cambndge to solve the problem. DNA was just, ah-you know, another big molecule, and noth- ing that unique about it." T HE strangest character in the pur- suit of DNA is the one Watson created in "The Double HelIx" for himself to hide behind: bumptious bril- liance, surefooted gawkiness, Midwest- ern American youth in Europe. Mau- rice Wilkins kne,v YVatson well at the time, and reviles '^' atson's memoir. "!'m Jim, !'In smart. lV10st of the time Francis is smart, too/' "Tilkins charac- terized it to me. "The rest are bloody c]ots." A little calmer, and more per- ceptively, \'\Tilkins added, "Jim plays himself as the holy fool. " Yet in read- ing "The Ð.oub]e Helix" one sees that Watson was more intuitive than he seemed to allow hImself to appear, and surely more hagridden. His working title for "The Double Helix" when the first draft was circulating in manuscript in the United States and England was "Honest Jim." His writing is direct, nervous, clear, awkward as though through impatience, and more skillful than the self-characterization leads one to expect. 'iV atson's college textbook, 181 , ' : ,"" . ,'$- *., '- . '" . " * ** ** * . .{ Step out in cozy comfort, whatever the weather. Damart's socks are the warmest In the world! That's because they're made from Thermolactyl, the miracle fabric worn by Mount Everest expeditions. These socks protect and insulate your feet as no others can. The cushion dou- ble knit boucle Thermolactyl actually retains body heat At the same time it lets perspiration evaporate so your feet always are snug and dry. There's no weight or bulk, just com- fortable warmth in any temperature. Damart socks are made in knee and ankle length at $9.95 and $6.50 a pair, plus handling and shipping-$l 25 per pair. In navy on1y. Name Address City State Zip @ 1978 Damart Spend a weekend with me. and we'll roast a leg of venison. efc ] wish you-d come here for 3 days and 2 nights soon, and spend the week- end sleigh riding, square dancing, and eating our good Yankee cooking We-U visit Old Sturbridge Village and the Sturbridge Yankee Workshop, too. Send for my free brochure Buddy Adler, InnJr eper Yankee Winter Wcekend@ at the Publick House On the Common- Sturbridge Mass 01566 (617) 347-3313